jk0215

just in case anyone is waiting on cornell - my friend who applied was told that they were just finishing up decisions and that she should expect to hear by Monday.

I did the MAPH program two years ago and made my decision today to accept an offer from my top choice. BEST DAY EVER until I came across this thread. I hesitated initially to respond, but I have to admit - especially on a day like today - without MAPH, I wouldn't have been accepted into a PhD program, let alone one of the best places to pursue research in my field. If you can't afford it, then that's that. I don't want to waste your time. It is a very expensive program. So was my undergrad. I'm sure at one point, for my parents, it felt like driving a luxury car off a cliff every year. BUT if it IS one of the few options you have, and you can afford it (or you handle the pressure of having student loans like a lot of people in my cohort did), u of c has a lot to offer, but ultimately with any program, it is up to you to make best of it. Generic advice I know, but really simply put, no one program does it all, and for me, knowing how much it cost, I was really determined from the beginning to get my money's worth. I went to an ivy league school for undergrad with a major in art history, senior thesis with a great professor, and scored 1590 on the GRE, so I was really disappointed the first time around. But looking back, there was no chance in hell I would have gotten in. I didn't have a developed research focus and wasn't well-read in terms of current literature in my field beyond readings from undergrad classes, and at the very least, I was off to a pretty good start after a year at U of C. The core class fall term was hella challenging, but I survived it and got an A, and most of the seminars I took, I was the only MAPH student which made me feel out of place to join in on the discussions, but I just had to get over that. I found what really helped me was being proactive in reaching out for advice and feedback from professors and students, and I plan on continuing that as a PhD student. In choosing my thesis advisor at U of C, I was really lucky to have been able to work one-on-one with a professor whom I respect very much, and she was incredibly supportive during the entire application cycle afterwards - both in encouraging me but also letting me know the areas I needed to improve on. Some of my peers had to push themselves a bit harder to find that. My preceptor was also the best human being in the world and a huge part of my support system even after I left the program. By the time I applied (a year after the MA), I had a better statement, three new letters, museum internships, improved proficiency in my second foreign language, and stronger drive to pursue a PhD. From my precept group, one friend applied right after MAPH and got into one of the most best programs for his field of study. It was different for others, and a lot of them simply realized they didn't want to be in academia and got jobs (working at a bank, teaching at a community college, joining an education dept at a museum, founded a curatorial collective etc). So, no it might not be a traditional art history program, but it worked for me.

Argh! U beat me to it! Kinda relieved it'll be all over soon.

Ahh, congrats to the Columbia admit. I wasn't going to start worrying about Columbia until next week-ish...sadness.

Yeah, I'm just going to assume, at this point, if a school has already sent out acceptances, then mine's a rejection, so the four left are schools that have yet to contact anyone according to the results page...It's going to be a painful week.

jumping in on that group hug! well, after seeing those acceptances and then a week had gone by, not too much of a surprise anyhow. Four to go!

Hi! Yeah, I'm trying to stay positive too. Princeton is my dream program, but some of the comments for the email acceptances do say that they were contacted weeks before via phone by POIs. Holding my breath though!

Just looking over posts from the past few years on the results board for Princeton, it looks like POIs tend to make contact either via phone or email beforehand to accepted students and then in 2-3 weeks or so, generalized emails are sent out for both acceptances and rejections?

Congrats to the princeton admit. Arghh, one down five to go, I guess!

lucky me - my birthday is right around Valentine's, so if rejections start coming in good thing it'll be time for a ridiculous amount of cake and booze anyway. looks like michigan has started to contact finalists for their admit weekend? I didn't apply, but my friend did, and she's probably going to be glued to her phone all day...

It looks like emory, duke, UCSD etc have all started to make contact with people on their short lists? So I'm thinking after another week or so, we'll start seeing posts about princeton, northwestern, berkeley, upenn, chicago...and the madness will slowly consume me good luck to everyone on your interviews with BGC

Hi all, long time lurker here, but I just completed all of my applications today! *small yay* Dreading the wait, but sooo glad everything is in (...though I just spotted a teeny spelling error in my writing sample....which i probably should file away in a random sub-folder on my computer so that I can stop obsessing over it........) Good luck to everyone!